“I’m already used to it. I like it fine. But why?”
“The Old Man’s orders.”
I started to ask why again, then I knew why, and I started feeling worse again. I shut up. Doris went on, “Now for some supper.” She got a tray and sat down on my bed.
“I don’t believe I want anything to eat.”
“Open up,” she said firmly, “or I’ll rub it in your hair. There! That’s a good boy.”
Between gulps, taken in self-defense, I managed to get out, “I feel pretty good. Give me one jolt of ‘gyro’ and I’ll be back on my feet.”
“No stimulants for you,” she said flatly, still shoveling it in. “Special diet and lots of rest, with maybe a sleepy pill later. That’s what the man says.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Extreme exhaustion, starvation, and the first case of scurvy I ever saw in all my born days. As well as scabies and lice—but we got those whipped. There, now you know—and if you tell the doctor I told you, I’ll call you a liar to your face. Turn over on your tummy.”
I did so and she started changing dressings. I appeared to be spotted with sores; the stuff she used stung a bit, then felt cool. I thought about what she had told me and tried to remember just how I had lived under my master.
“Stop trembling,” she said. “Are you having a bad one?”
“I’m all right,” I told her. I did manage to stop shaking and to think it over calmly. As near as I could remember I had not eaten during that period oftener than every second or third day. Bathing? Let me see—why, I hadn’t bathed at all! I had shaved every day and put on a clean shirt; that was a necessary part of the masquerade and the master knew it.
On the other hand, so far as I could remember, I had never taken off my shoes from the time I had stolen them until the Old Man had recaptured me—and they had been too tight to start with. “What sort of shape are my feet in?” I asked.
“Don’t be nosy,” Doris advised me. “Now turn over on your back.”
I like nurses; they are calm and earthy and very tolerant. Miss Briggs, my night nurse, was not the mouth-watering job that Doris was; she had a face like a jaundiced horse—but she had a fine figure for a woman her age, hard and well cared for. She wore the same sort of musical-comedy rig that Doris sported, but she wore it with a no-nonsense air and walked like a grenadier guard. Doris, bless her heart, jiggled pleasantly as she walked.
Miss Briggs refused to give me a second sleeping pill when I woke up in the night and had the horrors, but she did play poker with me and skinned me out of half a month’s pay. I tried to find out from her about the President matter, for I figured the Old Man had either won or lost by that time. But she wasn’t talking. She would not admit that she knew anything about parasites, flying saucers, or what not—and she herself sitting there dressed in a costume that could have only one purpose!
I asked her what the public news was, then? She maintained that she had been too busy lately to look at a ‘cast. So I asked to have a stereo box moved into my room, so I could catch a newscast. She said I would have to ask the doctor about that; I was on the ‘quiet’ list. I asked when in the deuce I was going to see this so-called doctor? She said she didn’t know; the doctor had been very busy lately. I asked how many other patients there were in the infirmary anyway? She said she really didn’t remember. About then her call bell sounded and she left, presumably to see another patient.
I fixed her. While she was gone, I cold-decked the next deal, so that she got a pat hand—then I wouldn’t bet against her.
I got to sleep later on and was awakened by Miss Briggs slapping me in the face with a cold, wet washcloth. She got me ready for breakfast, then Doris relieved her and brought it to me. This time I fed myself and while I was chomping I tackled her for news—with the same perfect score I had made with Miss Briggs. Nurses run a hospital as if it were a nursery for backward children.